Burning Bridges
by lonaj
Summary: A news crew invades the Enterprise. Now complete. A few more tweaks. Still finding typos.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first Enterprise fan fiction.

Warning:  I am not a life-long Star Trek fan and I don't remember a lot of Enterprise episodes so I may have written some silly things.

Time Frame: The story is set in the future after the Xindi war has been fought and won.

Disclaimer:  The Star Trek Enterprise characters do not belong to me.  Neither do the song lyrics contained herein.

This chapter has had minor edits from the first posted version.

Admiral Forrest's screened image covered half the forward wall in conference room seven.  "So what you're saying, sir, is that you want me to kiss up to this news crew."  Jonathan Archer, captain of the Star Fleet vessel Enterprise and former hotshot test pilot, had to chuckle.  The things he was asked to do for his planet.

"Kiss up figuratively or literally, your choice, Jon, but keep it from the crew.  They'll need to look as natural as possible.  Channel 188's been burning Star Fleet in effigy and we don't want to give them any fuel for the bonfire."  Forrest looked embarrassed.  "Please, Jon.  We need this here at home.  I've been taking a ton of flak over the whole Xindi thing."

Archer sighed.  The people back on Earth didn't remember the Xindi attack.  When the Enterprise returned to Earth after the final battle in the deformed time/space hell of the Natella star cluster, they'd found Florida and the Caribbean unmarked, Trip Tucker's sister alive and Star Fleet wondering where the hell the Enterprise had gone for almost a year.

The entire Xindi planet had been canceled.  It had never been.

Headquarters had only believed Archer's Xindi story after the Enterprise had downloaded countless images, star maps, personal and ship logs, and ten different groundbreaking discoveries in weaponry, shielding, and energy control.

To some -- those who believed Archer -- he was the greatest hero that had ever lived.  Others thought he'd gone witch hunting without a license or even a witch.  Star Fleet and Admiral Forrest had stood behind him all the way, and Archer had been able to keep both his reputation and his command.  But it had cost them a lot in the public opinion polls.

"Okay, I'll do it," Archer told his boss.  "I owe you one."

On to chapter 2!


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter has an additional scene as well as some minor additions and revisions.

"Doc?" Trip's voice seemed to echo in the empty infirmary.  On a side bench two cages rattled and something small and vocally challenged squeaked.  In the smaller of the two cages, a bright orange tongue flicked through steel bars.  "Doc?  Where are you?" Trip repeated.

The door hissed open and Doc Phlox bustled in.  "There you are, Commander Tucker.  I see you received my message."

"Yeah, 'bout two minutes ago.  Urgent medical emergency, you said."  Trip looked around.  "What emergency?  I've got no time for games right now, Doc.  Those news vultures are down in engineering today and I …"

Phlox put his hands together as though to pray then pointed his fingertips at Trip.  It was an Andorian gesture of blessing and protection.  Hoshi had picked it up at the Andoria-Vulcan peace treaty negotiations a month earlier.  Not long after the whole crew had been doing it.  In fact, since Admiral Forrest had cursed Enterprise with the Channel 188 vid news team from home, they'd all been doing it several times a day.

The Captain had asked his crew to make nice for the Channel 188 newsies, but it was getting hard.  They hung over Trip's shoulder 24/7 and their interview questions ranged from insulting to downright rude.  They'd just love to catch him on camera with his pants down.  Trip already had a plan for that eventuality – he'd moon 'em.

"I know, I know," Phlox said.  "That's precisely the emergency.  Something has to done about Ms. Hotaka and Mr. Manseker.  Preferably something to cheer everyone up.  I've never seen the crew's morale so low, at least not since the Xindi incident and the destruction on Earth.  The Captain doesn't seem inclined to act, T'Pol hasn't been answering my calls, so I thought perhaps you and I …?"  As Phlox's voice trailed off, his pale blue eyes held a question.

Tucker bent his head.  He considered Jon Archer his best friend, but damn it all, lately the Captain seemed to be thinking with the wrong end of his body.

"Just what did you have in mind?"

The Doc's normally cheerful face beamed even broader.  "I was thinking a talent show might be just the thing."

Meditation would be long tonight, T'Pol thought as she lit the candle.  Unacknowledged emotions swept through her body in waves, even more powerfully than when she'd been conducting interspecies physical relationship experiments with Commander Tucker.  Emotional disturbance had eventually forced her to discontinue that study.  But now she had nothing to discontinue.  She and Captain Archer weren't intimate.

Ever since the Channel 188 news crew had arrived, T'Pol had been doubling and trebling meditation.  It took extra time out of her workday, but she had plenty of that since she no longer spent off-duty hours with Captain Archer learning Earth games of chance.  The Captain's off-duty time seemed totally occupied.  It was just as well.  T'Pol gagged whenever she was near him.  His normally salty-sour body odor had morphed into a rank blend of human musk, pheromones and floral feminine perfume.

And today the Captain had asked her to be more pleasant to the Channel 188 news team, which was totally irrational.  She was Vulcan.  Vulcans treated everyone the same.

Settling down cross-legged on the floor, her hands on her knees, in what humans called a yoga position, one by one T'Pol surrendered her emotional load to reason and discipline.  The list was long.

The first time Jonathan Archer had stepped into his personal living quarters on the Enterprise he'd been surprised by his bed.  Although he'd helped plan the ship's engine, weaponry, and control room, somehow he'd missed every meeting on the officer staterooms.  They hadn't seemed important.

So Archer hadn't known about the queen size bed.  Captain Archer, in the depths of space, billions of kilometers from the closest human colony, in a job that tended to isolate him emotionally and physically from everyone aboard and everyone he met, had a bed big enough for two.

At times, when he'd ached for someone soft and warm to lie next to him that had seemed ironic.  Tonight it seemed like heaven.

The ship's laundry had changed the sheets and blanket today and the sharp smell of clean cotton combined with Inez Hotaka's natural musk and a perfume redolent of white ginger and carnations.  She felt smooth and delicate like China silk.  She slipped under him, over him, around him until Archer felt Inez everywhere.  She welcomed him like a landing bay and he a shuttle coming home.

It had been years.  So very long.  Everyone goes through a dry spell now and then, but for Archer it had been an eternity.

God, it was so good to let go and just be with someone.  And to think, it was all in the name of duty.

Don't stop reading!  Chapter 3 is available with a click of your cursor!


	3. Chapter 3

Minor additions and corrections in this chapter.

Manseker had seen Inez do it before.  Channel 188's star reporter had a habit of sleeping with her news stories.  Getting close to the source, she called it.  But Manseker had figured Captain Jonathan Archer, the much-ballyhooed heroic captain of the Enterprise, for a higher than average temptation threshold.

But it hadn't looked that way when they'd arrived.

"Ms. Hotaka!" Archer had gasped when Inez had slipped a long brown hand into the Captain's hospitable shake.  "Welcome to Enterprise!  We're delighted to host Channel 188's news team."  He'd insisted on personally carrying her bags.

"Oh, please call me Inez," she'd purred.  Inez liked her men big and blond.  Captain Archer was both.  Manseker was neither.

Manseker had stepped out of their shuttle right after Inez; but everyone, including Inez, had ignored him, and no one had offered to help with his two heavy cases of cameras and editing equipment.

His eyes on Inez's photogenic face, the Captain had led her away.  "Admiral Forrest asked me to give you full cooperation with this documentary of yours," he'd said as they'd walked through the shuttle bay doors.  "I understand you want to do 'a-day-on-a-starship' sort of thing."

"What a dork," Manseker had thought.

That had been their first day.

Tonight Inez sat with the Captain, cuddling so closely her glossy black mane frequently brushed his resolute cleft chin.  The captain should have gone into show business.  He had the face and build of a Greek god.  In fact, Channel 188's head of programming had suggested CGI-ing Archer's image into an original space adventure series.  Thanks to the endless Enterprise news stories, the Captain already had the highest name recognition on the planet.  It'd be a sure fire hit.

So besides the documentary, Inez had been authorized to negotiate up to seven million for Archer's corporeal image.  That was the real reason for Inez's single-minded pursuit of the Captain.  She was after the ten percent signing bonus she'd been promised.

Manseker sat at the same rec. room table as Inez and the Captain.  Even in the room's computer generated flickering pseudo-candlelight, the cameraman could tell Archer's eyes weren't for the woman on his arm.  He was watching the Enterprise's Vulcan supercargo T'Pol who sat at a table half way across the room next to Tucker the ship's chief engineer and Reed the weapons' specialist.

At the end of their second week on board Inez had stormed into Manseker's cabin, which is quite a trick with those automatic sliding doors.  There was no way to slam them.  Flopping down on the end of Manseker's bunk, she'd told him, "I think maybe Archer's got a thing for that Vulcan bitch."  Inez had sounded pretty bitchy herself.

Manseker had perked up.  Interspecies miscegenation could really juice up their documentary, which so far had been as dull as drying mud.  The honchos back at Channel 188 had told them to figure on the Enterprise crew blocking them from any good stuff.  They were supposed to be on the lookout for an angle like this.  "Really?  You think?" Manseker had asked.

Inez had glanced at him in disgust then shook her head.  "Are you kidding, Manny?  You think I'd sleep with a creep like that?  No, of course not.  But there's something going on.  Maybe he's a switch-hitter or something.  I just don't get him."

Manseker had flashed his white teeth in a smile.  "Thought you'd already hooked the good captain."  Inez hadn't been in her room for his breakfast call.

"Hook, line and sinkered him, but I don't think it's doing any good."  Tossing her head, Inez had sent her black hair flying like a midnight silk flag.  Manseker's heart had skipped a beat.  He was sure she did that to him on purpose.  Inez knew just where Manseker hung his heart and she liked it there.  He just kept hoping some day she'd use it for something besides a punching bag.

Inez had kept nattering on about the Captain's lovemaking methods.  " … and he's got these far away eyes when we do it.  He's not seeing me.  I don't know what he's seeing.  We go at it and when we're done he tosses me out like the laundry.  All polite and loving, but it's always his 'Captain's duties' or 'I've got to take Porthos for a walk' or something like that and I can't seem to reel him in."  Inez had thrown up both hands in despair.  "I don't know why I bother."

Manseker had reminded her.  "Sure you do.  Your ten percent signing commission on that seven million's nothing to sneeze at.  What's he saying 'bout that?"

Inez had snorted.  Somehow she had made it a pretty, feminine sound.  "No.  No way.  Nada."

"Well, there's your best reason to keep trying."

Personally, Manseker thought Captain Archer did have a thing for his Vulcan, but if the reporter doesn't want to dig that dirt, far be it from the cameraman, as they say in the industry.

Manseker wondered idly why Vulcans had only one name.  And "T'Pol"?  De pole?  You had to wonder what the pointy ears had in mind, giving a name like that to such a curvaceous piece.

The ship's doctor, a congenial Denebulan named Phlox, was emceeing tonight's talent show.  He sidled among the room's closely set tables and chairs on his way to the stage as a Latino crew woman with a luscious honey colored skin not quite as dark as Inez finished an excellent, hard-driving acoustic guitar number.  Phlox carried a salad bowl full of paper scraps and wore a large lavaliere cordless mike on his lapel.  The stage was only a spotlighted area with a floor mike and a couple of stools.

"Let's show Crewman Rodriguez how much we appreciated that fine performance.  She's been practicing for months!" Phlox said clapping enthusiastically with everyone else as the guitar player sat back down at her table.  Phlox's short arms were wrapped around his bowl and he could barely bring his palms together.  His microphone rattled.  Cameramen noticed things like that.  The Doc should be wearing the mike higher.

As the applause eased, the doctor continued, "And now it's time to choose our next victim.  Ensign Sato, if you would be so kind."  He offered his bowl of paper scraps to a diminutive Japanese crew woman at the first table off stage.  She pulled a piece of white.  "What number do you have there, Hoshi?"

"Two nine," she said and waved the small piece of paper in the air.  "Twenty-nine."  Throughout the room the heads of would-be performers bent, shook negatively then quickly came back up to look around.

On the other side of Manseker's table, Inez had abruptly straightened in her chair.  Captain Archer had stood up.  "That's me," he said with what seemed to be a pleased smile on his face.

"Uh-oh," Ensign Sato said loud enough for everyone to hear over Phlox's microphone.

Next chapter is right there -- just a click around the corner. 


	4. Chapter 4

Only very minor changes in this chapter.

Captain Jonathan Archer arranged his lanky length on one of the stage stools and pulled the floor microphone Rodriguez had been using a little closer.  It was a relief to get away from Inez.  She clung like one of the Doc's Valadian blood slugs.

Strumming the acoustic guitar Archer had just begged off Rodriguez, he nodded to its owner.  "Thanks, Roddy.  I promise to take good care of your baby.  And that was a lovely piece you just gave us."

Roddy pulled double duty as both the C-shift short-order cook and as one of the ship's five part-time seamstresses.  Her chili was to die for.  Roddy also held a doctorate in Ancient Latin American Cultures and was a mean shot with a hand phaser.  He'd seen her bulls-eye a moving target at fifty feet.  Reed had been begging for a new Security trainee lately and would just love Roddy.  He'd tell T'Pol to reassign her tomorrow.  Maybe she'd still make chili once in a while if he asked really nicely.

Roddy smiled a "thanks" for the Captain's praise, but like everyone else in the darkened rec. room she looked a little stunned.  Captain Archer was going to serenade them?  The Captain hadn't been himself lately, but this was downright weird.

At the closest table Hoshi had the grace to look embarrassed.  "Don't worry, Hosh, I'm not going to recite the operations manual or anything like that," Archer told her.

Archer strummed an experimental chord with Rodriguez's thumb pick.  The beautiful guitar vibrated like a living organism, like T'Pol had vibrated this morning when they'd argued about Inez.  He hadn't seen her shaking, he never did with T'Pol, but he had felt it in the air.  And she'd only been telling him the truth, that he'd betrayed his responsibilities.  He'd used the Admiral's request for cooperation as an excuse to dally where he'd had no business going.

"To say the very least your relationship with Ms. Hotaka is inadvisable," T'Pol had said.  "I have investigated her career and she specializes in personal attacks of the most destructive type.  And as I'm sure Admiral Forrest has told you, Channel 188 broadcasts a lot of anti-Star Fleet programming.  They'd love to …"

The Captain had rounded on her then.  "You what?  You investigated Inez?  On Earth, people respect privacy, T'Pol, and even a starship captain has a private life.  That was uncalled for."

That's when Archer had felt the air shake.  T'Pol had left the ready room without another word.  He hadn't seen her again until the talent show started, but he'd brooded over their conversation and come to a single, breathtakingly obvious conclusion:  T'Pol had been right.  This couldn't go on.  Archer wasn't the Captain of the Enterprise anymore.  He'd become an employee of Channel 188.  That's not what the Admiral had intended.

Archer's fingers had been automatically picking out tunes and trying out the timbre of Roddy's guitar with a few chords here, a note or two there, all from mid-20th Century folk music because that was all he knew.  He finished with the opening bars of "El Condor Pasa."  That had been Miss Edward's second favorite Simon and Garfunkle song.

Looking out over the audience, Archer stopped playing and rested the guitar's waist on his knee.  "All of you know my dad was Hank Archer and most of you know that I grew up at the Warp Five Skunk Works while he and some other really famous guys developed the engine powering this starship."

Archer didn't often brag about his dad, but it seemed like a good time.  Inez's buddy Manseker had turned on his camera.  Archer could see the floating green diode.

"But not many people know about the first love of my life.  The most beautiful woman that ever lived … "  The Captain paused for effect.  He had Inez's full attention.  He risked a quick glance in T'Pol's direction.  She seemed interested too.  "… my sixth grade teacher, Miss Edwards."  Everyone laughed.  Inez looked disgusted and T'Pol amused -- if he interpreted that arched eyebrow correctly.

He went on to tell the room about Miss Edward's interest in Twentieth Century folk music, and her obsession with Simon and Garfunkle.  "… and so, while all the other kids in Buffalo watched the latest hot fried hits on their vids, us lucky kids in Miss Edwards' class learned some really great numbers like," he strummed the guitar dramatically, "Scarborough Fair," he played a lilting chord from that song, "The Sounds of Silence," he played a more somber chord, "and the one I plan to sing for you tonight, Bridge Over Troubled Water."

With that Archer had finished talking.  He hoped the song would tell his crew how sorry he was.  Simon and Garfunkle's original rendition had been something of a hymn.  Archer sang it as a promise from his heart, humble, mellow and warm with feeling.  After the long string of introductory chords he began to sing.

"When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all …"

Archer couldn't help it.  His eyes went to T'Pol.  He had bridges to mend with everyone, but especially with T'Pol.

"Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down …"

T'Pol looked steadily back at him then away.  Archer dragged his eyes somewhere else, to Roddy and the other two cooks sitting at her table, Jim Hutton and Frank Ivanovich.

Second verse.

"When evening falls so hard I will comfort you.  I'll take your part."

He glanced toward Inez and Manseker.  Their mouths hung open in semi-drooling expressions.  Archer knew he had a decent singing voice.  Maybe Inez was thinking of offering him another million.  He'd tell her where to put it.

The chorus again, longer than the others with an instrumental interlude before the next verse.

"Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down …"

He couldn't keep his eyes from going back to T'Pol's side of the room.  Trip sat next to her.  Over the years T'Pol and Trip had developed an easy friendship that Archer envied; and of all the people in the room, only Trip had heard Archer sing before.  With a finger Trip silently tapped an irregular rhythm on his table.  His eyes had narrowed and lips pursed.  Trip had been pretty angry about the news crew's invasiveness and probably blamed his captain for not controlling them better.  T'Pol's hand descended on Trip's and stilled it.  She shook her head.  With an embarrassed smile Trip leaned back.

Lieutenant Reed, on the other hand, was leaning forward, drinking in every lyric.  For Reed, the Captain could do no wrong.  His family had been Navy for centuries.

Archer started his final verse.

"Sail on silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine.  All your dreams are on their way.  See how they shine."

Archer closed his eyes to finish the song.  It helped him keep his mind where it belonged – on his ship and his crew.

"Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind."

As the last chord faded off the guitar, he sighed and opened his eyes again.  The whole room looked back at him, frozen, until Reed and then a half-beat later Trip leapt to their feet clapping wildly.  The rest of the room followed, even T'Pol decorously putting her hands together.

Archer nodded an acknowledgement but didn't stay in the spotlight.  Moving through the crowd, he slapped hands with the men and hugged a few of the women and ended standing next to T'Pol.  "This seat taken?" he asked, indicating an empty chair.

At first T'Pol's tipped her head back and forth in a nod but she quickly changed it to a sideways headshake.  Her eyes refused to meet Archer's.  "Uh, no, it's not taken, Captain.  Please feel free to join us."

Trip's congenial laugh agreed with her invitation.  "Yeah, sit down, sit down, Jon.  Glad to have ya."  Reed chimed in his agreement.

Up on stage Doc Phlox held the bowl for Roddy to draw the next ticket.  Reed left the table to fetch punch.  The rec. room buzzed with quiet whispering and dozens of new smiles brightened the fake candlelight.

It was good to feel like the Captain again.

Be aware, the next chapter is kind of racy.  Read on.


	5. Chapter 5

Only very minor changes in this chapter.

By the end of his first week on the Enterprise, Manseker had realized the ship's ultra-quiet electronic doors made it really easy to sneak into a room without alerting its occupants.  He'd used the trick several times to get excellent candid crew shots.  Tonight someone must've used it on him.  Manseker woke from a deep sleep to find a black formless lump sitting on the end of his bed.  Throaty, irregular breathing filled the dark room.

Manseker massaged his bed light to low intensity and saw what he expected – Inez dressed or rather undressed in nightwear and crying.

Swinging his short, hairy legs over the edge of the bed, Manseker slid next to her.  His arm went around the shaking shoulders, and Inez's dark silky head went to his solid bare chest like a sleepy baby to a pillow.  "Hey, Babe," he whispered.  "What's so bad?  Huh?  Come on.  Tell your Manny.  Come on now."

He had to go on in that vein for a while.  Inez had it bad tonight, but Manseker knew from experience that if she talked about it, she'd calm down.  Finally, her sobs quieted to sighs and snuffles.

"Archer threw me out," the feminine voice familiar to Earth's millions gasped into Manseker's chest.  "Told me he didn't want me."

No surprise that, not to Manseker.  After the talent show Archer hadn't returned to their table nor apparently later to Inez's room, so Inez had gone to Archer.

Inez shifted.  Her body, hot and sweaty from sobbing, clung to Manseker, and a pair of firm, round breasts softly gouged his left chest.  Manseker slept in his shorts and his response to that grew more blatant by the second.

Inez sighed and tilted her head back, revealing delicate features that burned with dark emotion.  Manseker held the angel of death in his arms, and briefly, he felt sorry for Archer.  If Inez went after the Captain, his career would die in Ms. Hotaka's Nine Hells of Public Humiliation.

"And you know what burns me, Manny?  What really burns me?  With a singing voice like that, Jon could make millions!  No, billions!  I could make him the biggest star since Elvis!"

Manseker didn't know what or who Elvis might have been, but he had been impressed by Archer's performance last night.  He said so.

Inez sighed.  "Yeah, too bad you didn't shoot it.  We coulda least had a music vid.  What a waste, Manny.  What a waste."

She shook her head, playing her silk mane through Manseker's chest hairs and tickling every square inch of his exposed muscle.  If possible, Manseker's body tightened even more.  Inez had to feel that pushing against her.

Happy to have something cheery to offer, Manseker said, "But I did shoot it, Inez, with my mini-cam, you know, the one I rigged to look like a row of buttons.  I already got it canned for tomorrow's data squirt.  Ensign Hoshi says if I re- …"

Inez interrupted him mid-word with a squealed, "You got it?  You got it?"  She said the same thing a few times more, her voice escalating with each repetition.  Manseker nodded each time.  "Oh, Manny, Manny.  I love you."  She kissed him on the forehead.

"You do?"  Inez hadn't meant it, of course, but Manseker wanted to hear the words.  They'd sounded nice.

"Of course I do.  You and me, we're going to be partners!  That was your own camera, right?"

Manseker nodded.

"And it was an after hours party.  That vid. belongs to you and me.  We'll make a fortune.  It's ours, yours and mine, Manny!"

There was something wrong with that, but Manseker didn't know what it was.  "Ours?  Are you sure, Inez?  I mean, Channel 188, they've got rights and I gotta …"

"We've got more rights!  It's yours and mine, Manny."  Inez's mouth went to Manseker's and those wonderful brown arms wrapped around his neck and locked their faces together.  A sweet, exploring tongue pushed between his lips.

Glad he'd brushed his teeth and shaved before going to bed, Manseker held very still, thinking in a minute he'd wake up and find this all wishful dreaming.  His heart beat hard and fast against Inez's breasts like the drum solo in Channel 188's theme song.  Inez's strong long-fingered hands kneaded Manseker's burly upper arms.

"Oh Manny," Inez moaned.  "Manny, my love.  You and me."

Afraid to break the spell, Manseker didn't say anything.  Maybe Inez had forgotten who he was.  Maybe she thought he was Archer.

"Ours …" Inez whispered and her lips and tongue massaged the skin on his throat and tickled his Adam's apple.  Manseker could barely breath.  Inez pushed him down on the bed, climbed on top and stretched out for a comfortable nap, her legs draping down on either side of him.

Manseker couldn't help it.  His buttocks pulled together and his hips went up.  Inez pushed back and made an animalistic noise.  "Do that again, Manny.  Do it some more," she said as she reached down between her legs.

Oh God, was all he could think then.  Oh God, oh God, oh God … 

There's a new development in the next chapter.  Oh dear!


	6. Chapter 6

Some small changes and modifications in this chapter.

Captain Archer leaned against the ready room bulkhead looking out the porthole at the thin threads of light made by the thousand stars closest to their flight path.  His right hand held a flat piece of real paper.  Star Fleet required him to use paper for formalities like this.

He wanted to burn it.  No, he wanted to burn all the paper onboard and make a really satisfying fire.  But it would probably start the fire alarms.

And if there was one thing Archer had learned in space, it was that committing words to paper was a human failing.  They'd find no more paper to buy for thirty light years in any direction.

And burning it wouldn't change the facts.  T'Pol would be a fool to turn down this offer from the Vulcan High Command.  T'Pol was no fool.

The door bleated for entry.  She was here.

No, she wasn't.

It was the popcorn Archer had ordered.  T'Pol liked popcorn, with or without movies.  He didn't look more than a second at the tray, just waved the orderly to put it on the desk, thanked him and turned back to the window.  The rich smell of buttered popcorn floated through the room.

Time dragged.  T'Pol had been standing C watch for the past week.  Although Archer kept no particular watch schedule, he was usually awake for A and a good part of B.  T'Pol hadn't forgiven him for Inez.  She was still avoiding him.

"Ensign Sato said you wanted to speak to me, Captain."

Archer spun around.  T'Pol stood by the doorway, calm, quiet, her arms folded in front of her.  He hadn't been that pre-occupied and there hadn't been a second door sound.  She must have entered at the orderly's departure and waited there by the door watching him brood.

"Yes, please have a seat, Commander."  Archer smiled or at least stretched his lips tight and exposed his teeth.

It still felt odd to call T'Pol by her newly commissioned Star Fleet rank.  She looked so tired.  The dark circles she always had under her eyes had deepened to greenish bruises.  The lines around her full, sharply defined lips cut dark brackets into the pale skin.

His eyes on T'Pol, Archer forgot to duck under the bulkhead rib that cut his cabin's ceiling in half.  The rib smacked him hard and he staggered back to the window, his head spinning.

Damn, he thought.  Double damn.  It had been at least year since he'd done that.  T'Pol was watching him calmly.  "Are you hurt, Captain?"

"No, no, I'm fine.  Sit.  Please."  The right side of Archer's forehead throbbed.  That was going to leave a mark.  The chair creaked slightly as he sat down.  He slipped the Vulcan communiqué under the popcorn and leaned forward, his elbows on the table.  With three fingers of one hand, he massaged the thumb of the other.  The silence stretched.  The popcorn aroma began to turn Archer's stomach.  With a nod of his head he offered it to T'Pol.  She shook her head in a "no".

T'Pol spoke.  "We successfully transferred Ms. Hotaka and Mr. Manseker to the Constellation this morning."  Good, Inez was Captain Westerman's problem now.  "Ms. Hotaka seemed in very good spirits."

Shipboard protocol put morning at the end of C watch, about oh-eight-hundred San Francisco Daylight Savings Time.  They coordinated chronos with Startfleet headquarters.

Archer had been eating a solitary breakfast in his private mess, as far from Inez as he could get.

"Oh?"  That was a surprise.  Inez and her cameraman had been unofficially confined to quarters for a week.  It had dramatically improved the crew's spirits but he'd expected Inez to flame her engines.

"And Ms. Hotaka bade me kiss you goodbye."  Archer doubted T'Pol intended to carry out that request.  T'Pol sat at the edge of her chair, hands on her knees and feet firmly braced against the floor, ready to take off like a rocket.  "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" shel continued.  "I am quite tired.  My sleep period began two hours ago."

Get on with it, Archer, he told himself.  Give her the High Command's offer.  It's your duty, both as her captain and her friend.

With one finger he pulled the Vulcan communiqué out from under the popcorn tray and skidded it across the black plasticene desktop.  "Vulcan High Command pushed this message through about an hour ago.  It's for you."  He looked past T'Pol at the wall.  He couldn't watch her face.  "They want you back.  They want you back real bad.  They're offering you your own ship."

Ten minutes later, alone again, Archer was back at his porthole.  At least he hadn't begged her, he told the zipping stars.

"T'Pol," he'd said when she'd finished reading the communiqué, "I know your Science Officer job here on Enterprise can't compete with a command, but I still gotta say it:  I'm hoping you'll stay.  I think we, all of us here, make a good team, and I'd hate to break it up.  Think about it before you answer.  Give it a day or two.  Please."

That wasn't begging, was it?  It was a clear, unemotional request for consideration.

T'Pol had said, "I will consider it, Captain Archer."  She'd left quickly without waiting to be dismissed, not even waiting for the sliding door to fully open before she slipped through.

It was a lost cause.  He'd never regain T'Pol's trust, not after Inez.

Archer's stomach growled.  Leaving the porthole, he walked over to the desk, took a fistful of popcorn and with a flick of the wrist slapped a napkin open.  One of the ship's ubiquitous plastic note pads tumbled out of the napkin's folds.  The kitchen sent him napkin notes all the time, usually things like, "Be sure to try the chipotle dip" or "The chicken's really good today."  This one was more personal.

"Reporting as requested, Captain," read the handwritten note.  "Commanders Tucker and T'Pol usually eat dinner around 0300.  FYI I'm making chili for C watch tonight."

It was signed "New Security Trainee Rodriguez!!!"  After the exclamation points Roddy had drawn a round circle with two dots for eyes and an open ellipse for a smile.

Archer smiled too.  "Thanks, Roddy girl."

Click, click, click and find out what happens next!


	7. Chapter 7

New Chapter

The blanket attacked T'Pol like a wild animal, wrapping her throat and pinning her arms.  In a blackness as deep as space, she fought back with her last ounce of sanity.

And lost.

Sitting up in bed, T'Pol ordered, "Lights on fifty percent."

The room was as cool as Lograbe Desert at dawn.  She liked it that way for sleeping but it would be cold on the cabin's deck.  Slipping on a heavy black robe, T'Pol lowered herself to the untidy pile of thin cushions she'd left two hours ago.

With a Human flamer from the galley she lit a Vulcan punk then used the smoldering punk to light the candle.  Vulcans didn't demand instantaneous fire from a meditation candle, they cajoled it.

"Lights out," T'Pol ordered and, "Disregard open flame."

Since her childhood, meditation had provided T'Pol with answers and understanding.  The ritual identification and disposal of emotions cleansed her mind for the next day.  Tonight for the first time in twenty or more years, T'Pol had not been able to complete her meditation ritual.

She glanced at the backlit chrono. on her desk.  C watch began in less than two hours, but a Vulcan meditation couldn't be hurried.  And she had yet to find an answer to the problem Vulcan High Command had posed.

Once again she reviewed her day.

The five hours she'd spent working in the situation room.  Captain Archer also used the sit. room frequently.  Even though he hadn't been there she could smell his coffee stains on the floor and feel him in the entry pad's loose keys.  It had made her hair fluff up, a Vulcan reaction to subliminal sexual stimulation.

T'Pol's hair lay smooth now.  She cast a single dark strand on the candle and the sharp stench of hot copper and burnt hair filled the room.

The swagger as she'd walked with Ms. Hotaka and Mr. Manseker to the shuttle bay and bade them farewell.  And her deep breathing afterwards to clear their scent out of her lungs.  Maintenance Crewman Brown had assured T'Pol that the Enterprise re-breather fully recycled the air every twelve hours.

T'Pol's hadn't notice the satisfied swing in her walk until she'd stopped in the level three head and glanced in the mirror.  Brushing a hand over her legs, T'Pol made a tossing motion toward the sputtering candle.

The quietly thumping footsteps as T'Pol had walked the corridor toward the Captain's office, her perfunctory nod at the departing orderly and her step inside.  She'd been taking C watch to minimize such intimate one-on-one meetings.

Dry mouthed fear.  Release the fear, T'Pol ordered her body.  She spit a tiny drop of saliva into her hand and stroked it down the candle.

The easing tension as T'Pol had secretly watched Captain Archer stare at the speeding stars.  His face had held a million questions.  Jon Archer never tired of questions.

A warmth as comfortable as a Vulcan meditation robe.  T'Pol's hands took thick fistfuls of hers and held tight.  She'd keep this feeling.  The decision slipped past her resolve to be rid of all emotions.

The tinkling in T'Pol's chest somewhere near her left ventricle when the Captain had banged his head.

Affection as warm as an embrace.  Meditation discipline demanded forfeit of every feeling, good or bad, but T'Pol wavered.  She'd be keeping this one too.

The bonfire that always boiled in T'Pol's blood whenever Captain Archer focused on her.

Passion, lust.  It burned far hotter than this lone candle, hotter than a room filled with candles.

The icy chill when the Captain had held out the Vulcan communiqué.  Humans used pressed wood pulp only for the gravest official matters.

Cascading confusion, anxiety, chaos.

T'Pol's emotions refused to disband, dissolve, disintegrate.

Each of tonight's meditations had ended here, with the choice she had to make.

Go or stay?  Vulcan or human?

Was T'Pol still Vulcan enough to command a Vulcan crew?  Was she Human enough to fully embrace their ways?

If T'Pol declined the High Command's offer, there'd never be another.

Captain Archer's team spirit or the Vulcan's logical chain of command?

Humans or Vulcans?

Emotions or logic?

The candle went out.

And on we go to the further adventures of the Enterprise crew!


	8. Chapter 8

New Chapter.

Only Group Effort  
By Silvie Losten

We here on the biosphere  
See you're leaving.  
So long but come back soon.  
We like breathing.  
And green is nice and red highlights  
The trees and seas here down below.

Humans wish and hope  
Your isotope of new life  
Begins five million fires and  
Ten billion hearts.

Lowering the small red-leather bound book he held, Admiral Forrest looked out of his third floor window at San Francisco Bay.  A stiff west wind cut a sharp chop in the Bay's deep blue water but the sun was out and the Golden Gate glowed orange in the afternoon sun.  He sighed.  At one time Star Fleet Command had been the media's darling.  Not any more.  This was Forrest's, what?  Ninety-fifth consecutive day in the office?  No one had even wanted an official comment for weeks.

Leaning to his right Forrest tapped a switch that poked up like a silver thumb in the vast black expanse of his desktop.  "Sundberg?  Sunny?  We getting any media tics today?"

A clipped, efficient feminine voice responded.  "I'll check on that, sir.  Just Channel 188?"

"No, comprehensive.  I like my poison straight up.  And, Sunny?"

"Yessir?"  She made one word out of the phrase.

"Red flag anything on the Enterprise and Jon Archer."  After that heads up, Sunny would, God bless her, report the Enterprise's current status along with the media tics.

"Of course, sir."  A keyboard clacked.  "If you're interested, sir, the NX-01 is still outbound to Vulcan.  They transferred their vid. team to the Constellation, uh, yesterday and they expect planet fall by oh-eight hundred of the sixteenth."

"Thanks."

The Admiral rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.  Poetry always gave him a headache, but after his wife Rachel had given him this book for Hanukkah he'd promised to read it through.

"Losten's just so very, very the thing right now, Tree," Rachel had told him.  Forrest's wife always called her husband "Tree."

This morning Admiral Forrest had been desperate for something to do and the little red book had insisted that today was its day.  He might even begin a book of poems himself.  He had just the title, "When Good Times Go Bad."  He hoped that Jon Archer had managed to butter up the Channel 188 crew before he'd offloaded them for home.  It could be critical to the future of planet Earth's deep space program.

Turning a page, the Admiral returned to his reading.

Form Free  
By Silvie Losten

Out of warped space 

No emotion, no logic,  
No curves, no lines,  
No beginning  
But the end of isolation.

Into warped space 

Gravity, time,  
Inertia, light,  
Principles, humans,  
And starships.

The wooden door into Sundberg's office flew open and the normally self-contained subaltern raced across the Admiral's office to his vid.  "Admiral, you gotta see this," she said in what sounded suspiciously close to a squeal, her blue eyes flashing excitement so brightly that Forrest could see the sparks flying from across the room.  Sundberg fingers played with Forrest's over-sized vid's keypad.

As has been common with vids. since the most ancient days of broadcast television, the sound came on first.  "… I will lay me down, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down," sang a rich and compassionate man's voice.  A second later his image filled the wall-high panel.  It was Jonathan Archer.  Sunny's hand tapped the six-inch curve of Archer's nose as she exclaimed excitedly, "See?  Archer!  Singing!  Isn't it just the greatest?"

The music faded, and Inez Hotaka's familiar voice came up.  "After spending two weeks with Captain Jonathan Archer on his ship the Enterprise, I came away with a better understanding of this vital, powerful man.  Star Fleet is so fortunate to have him, and as you just saw and heard, so is the rest of Planet Earth."

Inez went on like that for several more minutes.  When the station broke for commercial messages, Sunny, who had calmed down a little, muted the sound, turned to the Admiral and said, "Three of the top music vid. stations are running the song too and the online charts have been rating him in the top forty, I'm not sure exactly how high.  They shoot him up higher every few minutes."

Admiral Forrest looked from his excited assistant to the vid. and back again.  "Oh God," he said.  "Star Fleet's on the hit parade.  What'll it be next?  Performing monkeys?"  That hurt Sunny's feelings a little, and she looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to say something but didn't dare.  "What is it, Sun?  Come on, out with it.  I'm old, but I can still be taught.  Tell me what you think of this."

Sundberg licked her lips and considered her words carefully.  Being personal aide to Earth's top "space" man carried a lot of responsibility.  Whenever Admiral Forrest asked for her opinion, she tried to give him her best.  "It's the most positive press we've had all year, sir.  And on the whole, the public loves a Renaissance man."  In answer to the Admiral's slight cock of the head, she hurried to explain, "A man that can do everything and do it well."

"I know what it means, Sunny."  Admiral Forrest swiveled his chair back toward the vid. and took it off mute.  Inez Hotaka's voice-over was explaining starship routine as three crewmen dry mopped the Enterprise's engine room floor.  Her sultry voice made it sound sexy.  "But it's got my vote, if it gets the Star Fleet program rolling again."

"I don't think we have to worry about that, sir," Sundberg assured him.  Holding up her portable schedule tracker, she tapped two keys, wrinkled her forehead, shook her head and tapped the same two keys again.  Her lips shaped a silent "Wow!" then she dropped her hands and spoke to the Admiral.  "Scheduling already has you slotted for five new personal appearances and two banquets this week, and … " Sunny brought her hands up again to look once more at the tiny blue screen " … and the President wants to talk to you on line 2, sir!  Something about arranging a private tour of the Enterprise for his wife and daughter!"

Admiral Forrest raised his eyebrows but reached for the handset of his tele-com.  When you're hot, you're hot, he told himself.  Best go with the flow.

Keep going!  There's still more!


	9. Chapter 9

New Chapter

"… so Captain Archer asked me to stay on the Enterprise," T'Pol finished her explanation.  "He said we make a good team."

"A good team?" Trip said and shook his head in wonder.  He picked up his spoon and tried a mouthful of chili.  Tiny pieces of beefsteak melted in his mouth and a sauce tickled his tongue with Poblano peppers and cayenne.  This had to be Roddy's best batch yet.

"Yes, he said we all make a good team and that he wants to keep it together."  T'Pol sipped a deep red soup flecked with white.  Trip occasionally caught a citrus-y tang off it that reminded him of a Florida orange grove.

The Captain was being an idiot again, Trip thought to himself.  Team-shmeam.  T'Pol deserved Jon's honest feelings, not that kind of B.S.  She was so lovely, so mysterious, like an elf or even an angel.

"You're staring at me, Charles," T'Pol said.  Oops, he had been.  He looked back at his chili.  T'Pol didn't like being stared at.

At Trip's insistence, T'Pol had agreed to call him something other than Commander Tucker, but she preferred his proper given name Charles to the nickname Trip, saying that neither Charles Tucker the First or Second were on board Enterprise and there would be no confusion.  Couldn't argue with that.

Any fool could see that T'Pol was upset plus Trip had spent the last half-hour of his rotation more or less under T'Pol's feet rewiring the Sit. Room's science console.  T'Pol had talked the whole time, kinda working her way sideways through scheduling details and mechanical issues into this whole thing about the Vulcan High Command's offer and the decision she had to make.  The chattiness was unusual in itself.  T'Pol rarely said more than three sentences together without kicking in an equation or scientific theorem.

Trip looked up again.  "You look tired.  Haven't seen those bags under your eyes since, oh, I don't know, that time back in the Expanse.  You're not sleeping are you?"  He didn't offer to give her a massage.  If she wanted one, she'd ask.

T'Pol put down her spoon and pushed away her half-full bowl.  "I meditated several extra hours last sleep period.  It has been a difficult decision."

Trip waited for her to finish.  He understood T'Pol now, maybe better than anyone on board.  It had been a hard-won knowledge, and sometimes he looked back and wondered why he didn't hate her.  For a few short weeks their loving had been as rich and sweet as molasses.  He had even started to think about marriage and babies, until one morning when he'd been lying next to her, an arm around her waist and his nose nuzzling her neck, and T'Pol had announced as cool as a mint julep, "This study has ended."

Trip had been a bug living under a microscope and he hadn't even known it.

It had taken Trip several months, and untold shots of bourbon, to recover his pride.  Even then he hadn't been able to talk directly to T'Pol without standing at attention and saluting.  "Yes, ma'am.  No, ma'am.  Whatever the X-O wants, ma'am."  If she'd recognized his sarcasm, she hadn't said anything.

Then one long day, after space pirates had beamed on board and kidnapped the Captain, and insectoid Xindi had re-kidnapped him, and Trip and T'Pol's rescue attempt had started a three-way fire-fight that stampeded a herd of riding centipedes the size of elephants, and they'd searched and searched for Jon only to find his seemingly crushed, lifeless body, after that the truth had been easy for Trip to see in T'Pol's shaking hands and wounded eyes.  When she'd thought Jon dead, she hadn't been able to control her pain.  And when Jon had groaned and tried to sit up, she hadn't been able to control her joy.  Her involuntary smile had been blindingly bright, like the sun after a Gulf hurricane.

T'Pol loved Jon.

The truth was they loved each other.

Jon leaned on T'Pol like a vibroplast crutch.  T'Pol hero-worshipped Jon.  Before this recent Inez incident, the T'Pol and the Captain had argued, fought and forgiven each other as regular as mechanical clocks ticking off the hours.  Heck, most of the time they'd acted married.  When Trip had finally realized that, it'd taken the sting out of his hurt.

Trip had been the first human man in history to make love to a Vulcan woman, and it had been an honor, but it was over and done with.  Trip grew up and moved on.

Now if Jon could only see that T'Pol loved him, everything would be just four-square, bolted-down perfect.  Jon had to tell T'Pol something more personal than "please stay on as a member of my team," something more like "I love you and I think you love me too" or at least "I would feel terrible if you leave."  Even a good ol' boy like Trip could see that T'Pol needed reassurance that Archer cared.  'Specially after he'd rubbed her face in the you-know-what with Inez.  As T'Pol occasionally admitted, Vulcans had emotions, they merely kept them under control.

Today T'Pol wasn't even doing so good at that.

Trip realized that T'Pol hadn't said anything for quite a while.  "You decide yet what you're gonna do, T'Pol?  Not that you have to tell me, ya know.  But I'd sure miss those pointy little ears if you take off for greener pastures."

T'Pol wasn't looking at Trip, but over his shoulder at the mess hall's sliding door which had just whooshed someone in or out – in, by the sound of it.  Tiny eye muscles contracted around T'Pol's eyes and their dark depths grew just a tiny bit darker.

Trip was pretty sure who'd just come in but couldn't believe it.  Jon never ate in crew mess.  Then again, Jon absolutely worshipped Roddy's chili and this was her last turn as chef.  She would join Reed's security team next C watch rotation.

Trip couldn't see the captain without turning his head, but he heard Jon's voice chatting with Reed, who'd been sitting alone on the other side of the room.  Reed and Roddy had hit it off right nice, and Reed had been waiting for Roddy to get off her final cooking duty so they could plan a training regimen, or so Reed claimed.

Trip leaned forward and whispered just loud enough for T'Pol's Vulcan hearing, "Ya know, Jon's never gonna say it, T'Pol.  He doesn't think he has the right.  If you want him, you gotta make a move."

T'Pol's wary eyes said it all.  "He's coming this way," she hissed.

Sheesh, Trip thought.  Starships were easier to maneuver than Vulcan women.

"This seat taken?" Jon asked at Trip's elbow.

T'Pol stood up with her tray.  "If that one is not available, Captain, you may have this one."  She nodded at Trip.  "Charles, thank you."  She sashayed off to the tray return, her hips swaying smoothly as though to slow dance music.  A second later she was gone.

Archer eased into the chair T'Pol had vacated.  Picking up his spoon he stared at the huge steaming bowl of chili and slab of golden cornbread on his tray.  He sighed and shook his head.  "I think she hates me."  He didn't bother to say who.

Trip returned to his own bowl and ate a mouthful.  He chewed thoughtfully before answering.  Sometimes Jon was Trip's captain and sometimes he was a friend.  Right now Jon needed to hear some things only a friend could say.  "Wouldn't say that, Jon.  No wouldn't say that at all."  Trip dipped his spoon into the bowl again.  "No, I think she's crazy about you."

Jon had his own spoon half way to his mouth but froze.  He looked comical.  With a few simple words Trip had dumbfounded the man who'd single-handedly negotiated inter-planetary peace treaties.  He definitely had Jon's full attention.  "She tell you that?" Jon asked.

"Doesn't have to.  It's written all over her, if you know where to look."  Trip leaned forward.  The mess hall was almost empty.  Reed and Roddy had just left and only two scrubs from the laundry crew remained in a far corner.  They looked white, washed out and dead beat, not in any shape for eavesdropping, but Trip wanted to make sure no one but Jon heard this.  "Look, T'Pol told me the whole thing 'bout the High Command.  I know this is none of my business and all, but I think you're gonna have to go a little bit beyond just asking her to stay on your team."

Archer played with his food.  "Such as?"  The straight lines of his face looked resistive.

"Well, for starters, you might tell her that you love her."

Archer abruptly went ramrod straight in protest.  He opened his mouth to trashcan that idea.  Trip beat him to it.  "Come on, don't lie about it, Jon.  You know that you do."

Archer crumpled a little.  The captain was nothing if not honest, even with himself.  "Yeah, sometimes I think maybe I do.  For all the good it'll do me."

"Just tell her, Jon.  See what happens."  Trip chuckled at a new thought.  "Do it for Enterprise.  She's the best X.O. we've ever had."

Archer laughed.  "She's the only X.O. we've ever had."

"That too."

Let's keep going!  Two more chapters and it's done!


	10. Chapter 10

New chapter.

He'd delayed too long.  Archer knew that now.

Even after Trip's lecture last night he'd delayed, first telling himself she'd be sleeping, then that he needed to rest himself.  When he'd woke up, there'd been showering, dressing, eating breakfast and feeding Porthos to keep him busy, and that had been followed by what they'd once called "paper work" when they'd actually used paper.

Walking from his cabin to his office, Archer hadn't seen a soul in the corridors.  Only a day out of Vulcan and surrounded by friendly space, they were running with a skeleton crew, and giving everyone double shifts off.  Most used it for extra sleep time.  When Archer had finally made it into the bridge, only Hoshi, Travis and a science technician named Bartholomew had been there to nod salutes.

As Archer had sat down in the command chair – Trip called of it the "throne" and he didn't mean the one for kings – Hoshi had oozed quietly up to his side.  "Thought you'd want know, Captain," she'd almost whispered, "T'Pol sent a message to Vulcan High Command two hours ago.  I think she's told them."

Archer hadn't been surprised that Hoshi knew about T'Pol's new job offer.  In a closed community like the Enterprise, when someone burped the next person apologized.  They all knew each other so well.

"Oh?" Archer had said and raised an eyebrow.  He hadn't dared actually ask if Hoshi knew more.  Captains weren't supposed to gossip.

But Hoshi had understood the unspoken question.  She'd shaken her head.  "Encrypted."

That's why Archer was standing outside T'Pol's cabin now, his right hand hovering over the buzzer pad.  Finally a finger descended and pushed the button.  He had to know.

T'Pol had been asleep, but graciously insisted that he enter.  After all Archer was the captain and T'Pol respected his authority.  Too anxious to be ashamed of using even this small advantage, Archer entered and at T'Pol's invitation, gracelessly sat down on a floor pillow, leaning on one hand, his long legs tucked off at an odd angle.  It was not really comfortable, but he didn't deserve comfort.  And besides in T'Pol's cabin there was only the floor and the bed to sit on.  The bed was rumpled and unmade.  It suggested … things.

T'Pol sat down cross-legged a few feet away, clad only in baby blue satin pajamas that revealed more than concealed.  Archer had seen the p.j.'s before, but today he and T'Pol weren't saving outer space for all civilizations and her bare smooth skin affected him.  Archer made himself look only at T'Pol's face as he spoke.  "I won't keep you up long, I've just come to tell you something."  He looked for a reaction in T'Pol's elfin face.  There wasn't one.  There rarely was with T'Pol.

Archer took a slightly shaky breath and continued.  "I've heard you made your decision and called it in to the High Command."  T'Pol started to speak and he raised his hand to stop her.  "No, don't, not yet.  I want to tell you this because I'm figuring you took the new command.  That's the smart thing to do and if there's one thing I know 'bout you for sure – you're smart."

Archer paused.  This was hard to get out.  "What I want to tell you is how much I'll miss you."  T'Pol looked calm and perhaps a little sleepy, nothing more.  "And that'll be a lot.  A whole hell of a lot.  For the Enterprise because you're one hell of an officer, but for me too.  You see … " Archer couldn't stand it.  His eyes slipped away and his voice trailed off.  He was almost choking on his fear.  Even shooting bad guys had never been this tough.  He tried again.  "You see, I think I'm in love with you."

Trip had advised Archer to say the words, and Trip knew T'Pol better than anyone.  Trip may even once have been in this exact same spot, revealing the deepest secrets of his heart to cold Vulcan scrutiny.  If Trip thought it worth the risk, Archer'd give it a go.  But now that the words were out, Archer couldn't look at T'Pol and kept his eyes on the dead candle centering the meditation mat.  The moment stretched out.

Damn, it was too late for anything, Archer thought.  He'd lost her for good.  And he hadn't yet apologized for his stupidity with Inez.  Maybe if he did, it would make a difference.  Maybe if he told T'Pol how wrong Inez had felt.  What if he …

Archer heard a tiny rustle of movements, of satin p.j.'s and pillows squishing, and looked up quickly to find T'Pol kneeling next to him.  "Then you'll be pleased with my decision, Jonathan," she said.  She leaned forward until her full dark lips brushed his, her breath warm, sweet and faintly mint-y.  The swell of her breasts pressed against Archer's chest, and he forgot to breathe.  "I stay."

Next chapter's the last one!  And it's racy!  So be aware!


	11. Chapter 11

New chapter

Jonathan's lips were firmer than Charles's had been, T'Pol observed immediately, and he held a kiss longer too.  She didn't have much time for the study because Jonathan, as if thinking his attentions might be unwelcome, suddenly pulled away.  "I'm sorry, T'Pol.  I don't know what got into me."

"I do," she told him.  "Lie down."  Jonathan obediently stretched out on his back on the floor.  It pleased T'Pol to be able to order her captain about.  "Are you off duty?" she continued.

"No, no.  I came straight from the bridge."

T'Pol went to the communications console.  Archer curled on his side and one elbow to watch her move.  Hoshi's voice answered T'Pol's beep.  "Bridge."

"Ensign Hoshi, the captain and I are working in my cabin.  We do not wish to be interrupted."

"Certainly, sir."  Hoshi managed to sound happy without putting any inflection whatsoever in her response.

T'Pol returned to Archer and knelt by his side.  "Please lie back down, Jonathan."  He did.

"Look, T'Pol," Jonathan began, "About Inez Hotaka …"

Jonathan was going to apologize and T'Pol didn't care to observe that peculiar human custom just now.  It would spoil the mood.  She put a hand on Jonathan's mouth and he stopped speaking.

Unexpectedly T'Pol smiled.  Smiling, even laughing, is permitted in Vulcan sexual foreplay and amusement was in her voice when she said, "You are very obedient."  She chuckled at a sudden thought, something she'd often heard the captain tell his pet animal.  "You're a good boy."

T'Pol had never opened up her emotions this far with Charles.  But she hadn't been in love with him.  Charles had been an experiment, nothing more, and a botched one at that.

Jonathan sat back up and he looked at T'Pol with wonder.  His fingertip caressed her smiling lips then he pulled her head to his and his own lips once more took command of the situation.

He pulled her down and to lie beside him on the meditation mat.  One of his hands pulled her body close to his.  She let him do that.  He pushed against her, she pushed back.  They were so close she could hear his single human heart thundering in his chest.  It sounded almost like a prey animal, and that invoked something ancient and feral in T'Pol's psyche.

She was enjoying this.

T'Pol's right hand pulled open the long zipper of Jonathan's regulation Star Fleet coverall and explored inside, slipping under the soft dark undershirt to feel his chest muscles and his silky fine body hair.  Only humans had that much body hair.  Vulcan men were almost invariably smooth.  Jonathan's skin was hot, even to T'Pol's Vulcan touch.

T'Pol made another comparative observation.  Jonathan's body was much longer than Charles's had been.  T'Pol had to tip back her head to both kiss his mouth and caress him at the same time.

Both of Jonathan's hands were inside T'Pol loose pajama top.  She wasn't quite sure when that had happened, but it felt good.  Wonderful.  She considered removing the garment to give Jonathan easier access.

T'Pol's desk communicator beeped.  "Captain?  T'Pol?"  Hoshi's voice asked.  "I think you're really going to want to see this, sir."  She sounded excited.

Archer groaned at the interruption and looked at T'Pol like he wanted to eat her.  Kissing her deeply, he squeezed her close, but the habit of command was strong.  He arose and went to the communicator, zipping and straightening his coverall as he did so.

"What is it, Hosh?" he growled.

"Just turn on your vid. display screen, sir.  I'm broadcasting it for the whole ship!"  Hoshi was definitely excited.  She sounded like a young girl.  "It just came in from Star Fleet.  They wanted us to see it."  She added as an after thought, "Bridge out."

T'Pol had arisen and gone to sit on the bed.  Archer sighed, flipped on the vid and went to sit beside her.  He was nibbling at her neck as the vid came on.  "… and the phenomenal success of this music video has not hurt Star Fleet either.  After a year-long slump in the popularity polls, Star Fleet Command is back on top!  And here he is once again, ladies and gentlemen, Captain Jonathan Archer of the starship Enterprise singing Bridge Over Troubled Water!"

The vid screen filled with a spotlighted shot of the captain singing his lonely ballad at the talent night show.

Jonathan started to laugh.  He kept laughing as T'Pol questioned him with her eyebrows.  He flopped back on the bed and giggled and laughed until he was weak.

"You must explain this to me, Captain Archer," T'Pol told him.  "I do not understand."

Jonathan sat up and sobered almost immediately.  "No, please, T'Pol.  Never stop calling me Jonathan.  Please."  He pulled her close and gently kissed her lips.

"I won't," T'Pol promised.

Nodding towards himself singing on the vid screen, Jonathan explained his hilarity.  "Once again Enterprise has saved Star Fleet and humanity.  And this time we did it all for a song."

T'Pol wrinkled her brow.  She didn't understand.

Jonathan smiled tenderly.  "It's a joke, sweetheart, a joke.  Come here and I'll explain it to you."  And pushing T'Pol back to lie on the bed, Jonathan lay down next to her and began to explain it all very thoroughly.

Finis


End file.
